Ohio State Football Notebook: ‘Dwayne and Tate are starting to break into that circle’

Following Ohio State’s win over Wisconsin the Big Ten Championship Game, the Buckeyes and their coaches were hopeful that they had done enough to earn a berth in the College Football Playoffs, and most believed they had.

Instead, the following day, they watched as Alabama was granted the final spot in the playoffs, leaving the Buckeyes on the outside looking in.

To a man they believe they are one of the top four teams in the nation. Does that mean they want to go into the Cotton Bowl and prove the committee wrong?

“I don’t really think that that would help much now,” Buckeye linebacker Chris Worley said. “No matter how much, if we do win, no matter how much one of the teams will win by, it’s not going to matter about the national championship game. So our season is going to be over after this.

“So the biggest thing we can do is try to go out there and play for each other and get a ring for each other. We can’t go out there trying to please the committee and show them why or why not. The biggest thing we can do is go out there play hard, play how we know we can play.”

The Ring Master

Every season, the Ohio State Buckeyes have a goal of winning a Big Ten Championship, and they accomplished that goal this season.

And with any kind of championship comes new ways to display those accomplishments.

Urban Meyer is already looking forward to the numbers “2017” going up on the list of Ohio State’s Big Ten Champions in his team’s meeting room.

“Yeah, I look at it a little differently. I’ve not fallen in that trap about nothing else matters,” he said. “I’m anxious to see that thing go up there on 2000 and — what year is it? 2017, right there. Imagine it will be up next week. ‘Big Ten champions.'”

And as for the championship rings?

“Billy Price is officially our ring committee chairman,” Meyer said. “And it’s going to be a big one, he told me, which is fine. Make it as big as you want. So I put a lot of stock into what these guys have done.”

A Friendly Competition

This has been a fairly interesting year for the Ohio State quarterbacks.

J.T. Barrett is finishing up his record-setting career with even more OSU and Big Ten records. Dwayne Haskins helped the Buckeyes to a comeback win over Michigan. Tate Martell spent his first season in Columbus making news on the scout team. And last year’s backup, Joe Burrow, used the first half of the season to recover from a broken hand.

Heading into the 2017 season, however, perhaps the biggest story was who would be OSU’s backup quarterback. That story was finished before it could even be written when Burrow broke his hand. Haskins played well as the Buckeyes’ backup, and many have already anointed him as the 2018 starter.

There is still a long way to go before Urban Meyer and Ryan Day name a starter, but that doesn’t mean people will wait to talk about it.

Has there been too much made of the quarterback situation this season between Burrow and Haskins?

Following the PAC12 model of nine conference games and banning most scheduling of FCS opponents, the conference guarantees itself seven conference losses which would otherwise likely be wins.

For this season, the B1G has two 5-7 teams, Indiana and Minnesota; and one 6-6 team, Purdue.

Minnesota lost all three of its crossover games, while Indiana and Purdue were 1-2. Following the SEC model of eight conference games and an FCS opponent, the result would likely have been two more bowl eligible teams, two more teams without a losing record and one more team with a winning record for the conference.

The strength of schedule bump would have been considerable for Wisconsin, who beat all three teams, and a smaller bump for OSU.

Would this have made a difference in the CFP this year? Probably not. The committee seems to have lost interest in strength of schedule when it involves Alabama, conveniently switching the criteria to one bad game on the road in a tough environment following an emotionally draining epic comeback in a heated rivalry game.

While I don’t believe the B1G, unlike the SEC and now the ACC, should have its top teams playing FCS opponents, it may be a good idea for the majority to add them to the schedule and the entire B1G to return to eight conference games. At the very least, two more B1G teams would have reaped the benefits of bowl practices and the recruiting exposure of the games.

And let’s not forget Emery Jones, QB from GA, a 2018 commit. His bio reads: Four-star player. No. 2 rated dual-threat QB. 27th-ranked player overall at any position. Rated the No.4 player in the state of Georgia. Committed to Ohio State at Friday Night Lights on 7/29/17, making him the second commitment in the 2018 class. Attends Heard County School in Franklin, Georgia. Chose OSU over Alabama, Auburn, Clemson and many others.

I still believe that when all is said and done, Burrow will be the starter next year. Until he got hurt he has consistently been ahead of Haskins in the pecking order. Had he not broken his hand he would have been the next man up. Moreover, he is more of a Urban Meyer QB…a dual-threat who can both run and throw. He is also a coach’s kid who really understands the game.

We now have more depth at QB than at any time in OSU history. The battle will be epic and we’ll be in good hands no matter how this plays out. It will be fascinating to watch.

Its possible. I trust the staff to make the best decision. Sad thing is I think whoever doesn’t get tapped for the starting role between those two transfers out and rightly so. Its good to have a problem of choosing between two really good options.

That playoff selection has ruined my season. Its stolen all the joy from it. I have nothing but anger when I think about football and the injustice that was done. I have a hard time looking forward to the sport with the integrity of it ruined. There is no fairness. There is no justice. We are all at the whim of ESPN and other influence peddlers. The regular season no longer matters. College football, to me, is now complete bullshit.

Also, I hope you complain when we are the ones getting into the playoffs unfairly… because of ESPN and other influence peddlers…. but probably not.

Let Clemson blow the doors off Bama and let Bama fans hear for an entire offseason how they shouldn’t have made it… I want no part of Clemson with this up and down team… We could just as easily have been blown out by them or we could have won by a few TDs… not the sign of a great team… Greatness on the team? Yes. Was the team great? No.

What about don’t lose to the only team you play with a pulse by two touchdowns and then play nobody else of merit? Ridiculous.

OSU lost rto Virginia tech in horrible fashion back in 2014. I suppose you were there saying they didn’t deserve it. Or perhaps you have fabricated this elaborate rationale about how “its different”?
Somehow I think that double standard eluded you.